Simulation Environment Accelerates the Development of Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles must safely transport their passengers to their destination. The basic requirement for this is that the vehicle sensors detect their surroundings correctly. Therefore, much emphasis is placed on the validation of camera, lidar, and radar sensors throughout the entire development process.

To master this task, dSPACE offers developers high-performance simulation environments for validating sensor systems in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations, virtually in model-in-the-loop (MIL) simulations, or even cloud-based in software-in-the-loop (SIL) simulations. At the dSPACE World Conference, the company will demonstrate live how the sensor systems can be tested in various scenarios. The dSPACE World Conference will take place on November 19 and 20 in Munich.

Extensive Libraries for Sensors and Environments

dSPACE Sensor Simulation offers its users models for the sensor environment in library menus. These models can be used to create 3-D environments that allow for inserting road users, traffic signs, or roadside structures into the environment of the autonomous vehicle. The menus also let the users access a material database that contains more than 1,300 objects and 170 predefined materials. The users can also add more objects and materials. Furthermore, the software provides sensor models for radar, lidar, and camera sensors as well as suitable models for testing perception, fusion, and application logics. 

The development of functions for automated driven is rather complex, not least because hardware components, such as sensors from different manufacturers, ECUs, and driving algorithms must be perfectly coordinated. The simulation environment enables an easy and flexible integration of customer-specific sensor front ends. This makes the scenarios more realistic and the sensors adaptable to the individual use case.

“The earlier in the development process the sensor technology is validated, the faster safe vehicles with new functions for autonomous driving will make it to the roads. Sensor Simulation from dSPACE offers a complete simulation environment for accelerating the development process for autonomous driving,” says Christopher Wiegand, Product Manager at dSPACE.   

Software Supports SIL and HIL Simulation

Sensor Simulation supports the reuse of models and test scenarios on various platforms. Tests that the developer creates and uses on the PC can be executed on a HIL or SIL simulator or in the cloud. This allows for simple scaling letting the developer perform numerous tests in a short period of time.

For Maximum Performance: Sensor Simulation PC

Sensor Simulation runs on high-performance PC hardware platforms. For maximum performance, dSPACE offers the Sensor Simulation PC equipped with a high-performance graphics processing unit on which complex, highly accurate sensor models can be executed.

dSPACE offers developers high-performance simulation environments with which the sensor systems (here at the example Lidar) can be validated simply in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations, virtually in model-in-the-loop (MIL) simulations, or even cloud-based in software-in-the-loop (SIL) simulations.